Hashtag Trending- Facebook pays for your data; AI finds new antibiotic; Instagram Music comes to Canada

Facebook plays the Uno reverse card and buys your data, MIT discovered a new potent antibiotic compound using AI, and Instagram Music has finally come to Canada.

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Thank you for tuning into Hashtag Trending, it’s Monday, February 24th, and I’m your host, Tom Li.

Trending on Google, Facebook will now pay money to improve its voice recognition data. Through Viewpoints, Facebook’s research app, a select number of users will be chosen to ask Portal, Facebook’s home device, to call a friend. Repeating the task 10 times earns you 200 points in the app. Once you’ve collected 1,000, you can convert them into a cool $5. Unfortunately, each participant will only be able to transact once, so it isn’t a great way to get rich quick.

Trending on Google, MIT has discovered a new antibiotic compound that can kill even the most resilient bacterias. The algorithm derived the antibiotic formula in mere days after scanning through more than 100 million chemical compounds. The new antibiotic attacks bacteria using unconventional mechanisms and was able to clear infections in two different mouse models. Using machine learning to explore potential drugs is significantly cheaper and much quicker than current methods, which could lead to more potent and affordable drugs.

Trending on LinkedIn, Instagram Music has finally landed in Canada. This tool finally allows Canadian Instagrammers to insert homegrown Canadian music into their stories and posts. To use it, navigate to the sticker icon and select the Music sticker from Instagram’s camera. If you feel like the timing is apt, you can also use songs to reply to questions posted in your friend’s stories. There’s a breadth of new musical effects as well to give the same song new perspectives.

That’s all the tech news that’s trending right now. Hashtag Trending is a part of the ITWC Podcast network. Add us to your Alexa Flash Briefing or your Google Home daily briefing. I’m Tom Li, thanks for listening.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada
Tom Li
Tom Li
Telecommunication and consumer hardware are Tom's main beats at IT World Canada. He loves to talk about Canada's network infrastructure, semiconductor products, and of course, anything hot and new in the consumer technology space. You'll also occasionally see his name appended to articles on cloud, security, and SaaS-related news. If you're ever up for a lengthy discussion about the nuances of each of the above sectors or have an upcoming product that people will love, feel free to drop him a line at [email protected].

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